Israel Matzav

Discredited Dean

Stephen Walt has some more problems that he will undoubtedly blame on the Jews. This is from today's New York Sun (where I do not have a subscription, so I am posting the only part of it I can get).

It's going to be illuminating to watch how Harvard handles the controversy over the decision of its John F. Kennedy School of Government to issue a "Faculty Research Working Paper" on "The Israel Lobby" that is co-authored by its academic dean, Stephen Walt. On page one this morning we report that Dean Walt's paper has been met with praise by David Duke, the man the Anti-Defamation League calls "America's best-known racist." The controversy is still young. But it's not too early to suggest that it's going to be hard for Mr. Walt to maintain his credibility as a dean. We don't see it as a matter of academic freedom but simply as a matter of necessary quality control.

The Kennedy School, to cite but one example, is home to the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, & Public Policy, whose Web site claims it "promotes serious, probing analysis of how the news media affect politics and public policy in the United States and globally." How is the Center's Alex Jones going to be able to work for a dean who prattles on the way Mr. Walt does about how the pro-Israel lobby is "manipulating the media" on the basis, in part, of the false claim that "the American media contains few criticisms of Israeli policy, rarely questions Washington's relationship with Israel, and only occasionally discusses the Lobby's profound influence on U.S. policy"?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:30 PM